The Different...
but same.
The pipes burst in Mexico in the summer. Poorly designed outdoor pvc with lackluster glue sit exposed to mind melting summer Sonoran sun for 8 hours a day and eventually give way.
I’m familiar with the sound.
I did little else in north mountain Georgia in winter than babysit my pipes. Someone had put them in the attic in the 50s and they had some sort of heater installed that was no longer working or was destroyed in some careless renovation by guys I hired before I knew better. Framers and demo guys who will ruin all of your shit before you can even get to the jobsite to pay them another draw and find a mountain of beer cans under a tree in the back. Or stuffed in a newly sheetrocked wall.
There was a heater in the pool too. It was a fancy mod lifestyle house built by a concrete manufacturer way back when. And way back when you could heat a 70,000 gallon pool with gas and not bat an eye. The house also had a runway and the owner had his own plane and flights to Mexico were a regular occurrence in the 60s and 70s. If you’re thinking what I’m thinking and that opening riff to Smuggler’s Blues is ringing in your ear, we’re on the same page.
A lot of stories lingered about that original owner by the time I bought the house in 2005 as its third owner, but most folks were dead and as we know, dead men tell no tales. Some old timers like the septic dude, had a daddy who told him who had a still in the woods and who was running shine and likely who diversified to weed and started importing “employees” for the chicken processing plants (and other agriculture) of North Georgia. I met Mexicans in Habersham County who had been there for 40 years or more. It’s a strange accent. Jose from Michoacan who learned English in Cornelia, Georgia. Everyone kept pretty quiet about what went on there.
Much bible thumping went on and there were stories of the original family having church parties as a front and most everyone loaded their flask into the toilet tank in the half bath. The world has been steeped in fraud, scandal and secrets forever. It seems like everyone is in on it. Why do they even bother?
That old house was a ‘good deal’ when I found it and was on 7 acres of beautiful land. But it was old and everything that was going to break, broke in the first 2 years after I moved in. I learned a lot in what was supposed to be my “relaxing country weekend home”. A Master Class in money wasting on ‘safe investments’, real estate scams, plumbing, immigration, heritage chickens vs battery poultry mafias, composting, soil building on that crappy clay and how to live alone and have no one to count on but yourself. Oddly, I bought the house for the pool and the easy lifestyle but I never had time for either. The pool was filled in after 4 years of trying to make that affordable or efficient or a fish pond.
Looking back I could have literally bought, built and paid for a beach casita for the money I sunk into trying to keep that old homestead afloat. But the wiser side of me now knows that imminent domain, insurance rates, inflated property taxes or a land grab “natural disaster” would likely take my paid for home if they needed the waterfront for a hotel, or the mountain vista for a railroad or interstate. I’m okay with renting now even though the issue here is furniture, instead of housing crisis and inflated pricing. The key is living somewhere awful so you’ll never have competition.
I fixed the burst pipe out back and am thankful it’s just an elbow joint, anything bigger or requiring hacksawing I call the landlord and know that he’ll be here for 3 hours or more just to get out of the house with the wife, mother in law, three daughters and their toddlers. Last month he milked a low thyroid test result for 6 weeks in Hermosillo city. I don’t blame him.
I babysat some little white dog for an old dude who had no teeth but was going to the dentist and spent most of the week trying to keep that Yorkie from humping the ears off Rocky Rottweiler. He said he’d bring food but didn’t, of course offered nothing as payment and if I’m smart, I’ll never do that again. I was just glad he didn’t leave her on the streets because of course she’s in heat and not fixed. The heat was 110 or more and Suzy the Labrador got drunk from all the rotted plums dropped to the ground by birds. I feel like mostly I walk around with a small shrug and say, well, that could have been worse.
The Cynics Gratitude Journal
*thank you for putting liver spots on my hands and not on my face
*thank you for letting Suzy barf all the plum pits outside instead of my bedroom
*thank you for a passing hurricane up the coast so we can have a day without sun and the temps dropped by 30
*thank you for having the old man come back for the little dog, because last year someone dropped off a dog for a day and never returned.
Silver linings. Mother forking silver linings everywhere.